Bubbles and squeaks lure fish to survival

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Pied Pipers of science are playing a new tune, for Australian
tropical fish. Marine scientists at the Great Barrier Reef have
lured young fish from the open sea to artificial coral patches by
playing recordings of reef noises.

It is possible sound may draw fish into larger colonies in
future, improving conservation and fisheries in oceans under
stress.

A tropical fish ecologist at Edinburgh University, Stephen
Simpson, said: "I believe that in such a heavily impacted world we
need to develop active management tools, rather than simply fencing
off some areas and hoping for the best."

His team's experiment was reported yesterday in
Science.

It built 24 small reefs, using storm damaged coral rubble, on a
sandy seabed off Lizard Island, far north Queensland. At night,
underwater speakers played recordings of the usual reef cacophony:
fish calling, their teeth grinding coral, and shrimp snapping.

Each morning the scientists collected and counted all of the
fish on the reefs. They found the 12 alternating reefs where the
speakers lay the night before had more fish settlers than the
others.

They were counting late larval-stage fish: tiny, but at the end
of their time floating in the open sea, and ready to settle on a
reef and become juveniles. Two families of global reef fish,
damsels and cardinals, numbered up to twice as many on the noisy
reefs.

The experiment improved the possibility that fish could be
"ranched" in the open sea and attracted to restock fisheries or to
improve marine protected areas.